Port­fo­lio let­ter tips

It's the end of the term and it's time for one of the final steps: wri­ting your port­fo­lio let­ter. Don’t freak out! You’re al­most done! Con­cen­tra­te on in­tro­du­cing your es­says, focus on your strengths and weak­ness, and let the eva­lua­tor know what you've gai­ned from com­po­sing this port­fo­lio.

Here are some tips that might be hel­pful for you:

1. It only has to be one-two pages (Woo-hoo!)

The port­fo­lio let­ter should be from one to two pages.

2. Start it like a let­ter

You could start your let­ter the way you start any re­gu­lar let­ter:

“Dear eva­lua­tors,
En­clo­sed you will find…”

Then you can start by in­tro­du­cing the texts/pa­pers you have in­clu­ded. You can tell them some tit­les of your texts/pa­pers and what they are about.

3. Men­ti­on your strengths and weak­nes­ses

Now it’s time to show them that you have an un­der­stan­ding of your strengths and weak­nes­ses as a wri­ter. This is the most im­portant part of your let­ter.

• Strengths: Think of this part as your sel­ling points. Here, you are gi­ving them all the re­a­sons why you should pass from 11 in Eng­lish.
• Weak­nes­ses: Are we kid­ding? If this let­ter is to let eva­lua­tors know why you should pass form 11, then why are we sug­gesting that you men­ti­on your weak­nes­ses? The point is sim­ple: a strong wri­ter re­co­gni­zes not only his/her strengths, but also his/her weak­nes­ses as well. To be able to point out your weak­nes­ses and at the same time, tell your port­fo­lio eva­lua­tors what you've done to im­pro­ve upon these weak­nes­ses will only make your point stron­ger.

 

Re­mem­ber that the more spe­ci­fic you can be, the ea­sier it would be for eva­lua­tors to see and iden­ti­fy with your points. (The­re­fo­re, refer to spe­ci­fic sec­tions of the pa­pers you've in­clu­ded to de­mons­tra­te your point whe­ne­ver pos­si­ble.)

4. Wrap it up
Once you have in­tro­du­ced your texts/pa­pers and ex­ami­ned your strengths and weak­nes­ses, all you have left to do is con­clu­de your let­ter. This might be a good time to recap on what you have lear­ned/gai­ned from learning Eng­lish in form 11.

5. Don't for­get

This port­fo­lio let­ter is a part of your port­fo­lio. Make sure that your ideas are clear and fo­cu­sed, and that your gram­mar and spel­ling are clean and tidy.

 Port­fo­lio As­sess­ment
Di­rec­tions for Re­flec­tive Let­ter

Your port­fo­lio should be pre­ce­ded by a short re­flec­tive in­tro­duc­tion. Con­sider this in­tro­duc­tion an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plain your strengths and weak­nes­ses as well as your pro­gress as a wri­ter to the in­struc­tor(s) who will read your port­fo­lio. In order to write this let­ter, you’ll need to ana­ly­ze your own wri­ting pro­cess and the two pa­pers you’ve in­clu­ded in the port­fo­lio.

• What is it among the pa­pers that you would like to draw at­ten­ti­on to?
• What qua­li­ties in the in­clu­ded pa­pers re­veal your strengths as a wri­ter?
• What do you think you still need to work on?

In short, how would you as­sess your abili­ties as a wri­ter based on the ma­te­ri­al in­clu­ded in the port­fo­lio? This in­tro­duc­tion should be no lon­ger than one dou­ble-spaced page and should make re­fe­rence to the port­fo­lio es­says in order to il­lus­tra­te ideas and back up state­ments about your pro­gress as a wri­ter.

Samp­le Let­ter

Note: This model is not in­ten­ded to be pre­scrip­ti­ve or an ex­amp­le of a "per­fect" let­ter; ins­tead, it should give you a ge­ne­ral idea of what you might pro­du­ce in re­s­pon­se to the prompt.

To the Port­fo­lio Re­a­ders:

This port­fo­lio con­ta­ins my first essay for the quar­ter, a nar­ra­ti­ve essay, and my last essay which is a per­sua­si­ve essay about the Ame­ri­can Dream as it ope­ra­tes today. I think the last essay de­mons­tra­tes my strengths in focus and ar­gu­men­ta­ti­on, and my first essay shows that I can use vivid sup­porting de­scrip­ti­on and ex­am­ples. At the end of this quar­ter I think my main strength as a wri­ter is the abili­ty to vi­vid­ly de­scri­be what I ob­ser­ved and have ex­pe­ri­en­ced.

In the nar­ra­ti­ve essay that I’ve in­clu­ded you’ll see that I de­scri­be a ter­ri­b­le shoo­ting that I wit­nessed, using dia­lo­gue and vivid sen­so­ry de­tails. I wan­ted the re­a­der to see how ter­ri­b­le and sen­se­l­ess this ex­pe­ri­ence was. I used this strength in my per­sua­si­ve essay as well. I de­scri­bed a vivid scene from the movie we wat­ched in class and gave se­veral vivid de­scrip­ti­ons of the Boe­ing workers in my fa­mi­ly and what they’ve ex­pe­ri­en­ced. Ano­ther strength in my es­says is the focus. The nar­ra­ti­ve essay com­mu­ni­ca­tes an im­pli­cit the­sis about how I lost my faith be­cau­se of how sen­se­l­ess the shoo­ting was. My per­sua­si­ve essay uses a more ex­pli­cit the­sis about how Ame­ri­can Workers need the Ame­ri­can Dream. In this essay, I re­al­ly fo­cu­sed my re­vi­si­on on stay­ing with this point, but con­side­ring coun­ter­ar­gu­ments as well wi­thout stray­ing.     

I think my best essay this quar­ter was my nar­ra­ti­ve essay. I feel more com­for­ta­ble in this style than in the per­sua­si­ve or ex­po­si­to­ry style of wri­ting. I took crea­ti­ve risks with this essay be­cau­se it see­med more like crea­ti­ve wri­ting to me, which I do a lot on my own time. It was in­te­res­ting to re­al­ly ex­plo­re what this ex­pe­ri­ence meant to me and try to make an au­di­ence see it.​One of my goals when I began 101 was to learn how to write bet­ter in­tro­duc­tions and con­clu­si­ons. I’ve de­fi­ni­te­ly im­pro­ved in my in­tro­duc­tions (I use the "hook" me­thod in both the es­says I’ve in­clu­ded), but I’m still working on con­clu­si­ons that don’t "just re­hash the the­sis." In re­la­ti­on to or­ga­niza­t­i­on, alt­hough I or­ga­ni­ze points well in pa­ra­graphs, at times, I don’t feel like I’ve es­ta­blis­hed a strong tran­si­ti­on bet­ween my points.

 

 

Port­fo­lio let­ter tips: Her­un­ter­la­den [doc] [31 KB]